North America’s Largest City Moves to Legalize Pot

Legislators in Mexico City, the largest city in North America, are preparing to push through certain measures that would decriminalize and regulate the consumption of marijuana in the Mexican capital, a move that may speed up pot legalization elsewhere on the continent

Though deprived of sunlight and breathing the smog-ridden air of Mexico’s mountain capital, the marijuana plants, from a strain known as purple kush, reach 0.9 m in a brick home at a middle-class suburb. They are alimented with electric lights and kept behind closed curtains by the owner, who says he grows them to smoke himself. If police found them, he could be nailed for drug production and face a hefty prison sentence under laws designed to tackle the country’s ultraviolent cartels.

But that situation could change with a series of bills that Mexico City legislators plan to file at the end of this month to legalize and regulate marijuana consumption. Proposals include the setting up of cannabis clubs to grow herb for their members and tolerance of anyone carrying up to 30 g, or just over an ounce, of marijuana. Leftist lawmakers say the measures would free up police to focus on serious crime and take a step toward ending the country’s catastrophic drug war, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives in the past six years. “The war against drugs is a failure. We are not going to win it,” says assemblyman Vidal Llerenas, who is working on the legislation. “We cannot hope for a drug-free world. But we can hope to limit the damage and take the profits away from organized crime.”

The Mexico City bills are part of a wave of marijuana proposals across the Americas in the wake of the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington voting to legalize cannabis last November. The Uruguayan lower house has passed a legalization law, which the Senate is expected to vote on this month, and advocates are looking at measures from Brazil to Argentina to Canada. While the U.S. was long a world leader in drug prohibition, U.S. legalization has now become an influential force outside its borders. Alison Holcomb, the chief architect of the Washington State law, has spoken across the continent this year, including at a recent forum in Mexico. “I have seen a sea change in thinking. People are no longer asking if it can be done, but how it can be done,” says Holcomb, who is the drug-policy director for the ACLU in Washington State. If the Mexican capital, which is the largest city on the continent, were to legalize marijuana, it would add even more momentum to the prolegalization wave, possibly paving the way for similar measures in other Mexican states and in neighboring Central American nations like Guatemala.

Like in Washington State, Mexico City aims to take advantage of a federal system to forge a drug policy independent of the rest of the country. The Mexican capital’s assembly, dominated by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, has the same power as state legislature. In recent years, it has carried out a wave of socially liberal reforms, including the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. To supporters, this makes the capital a progressive beacon of hope in a conservative, Catholic country; to critics, it is a den of sin. Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera, who took power last year, has spoken positively about marijuana reform, and some speculate he could use the issue to make his mark during his six-year term.

A 2009 Mexico federal law decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs, including up to 5 g, or about a sixth of an ounce, of marijuana. However, police are still arresting many people with a little over this amount, filling police stations and prisons with relatively harmless criminals, Llerenas said. The assemblyman is looking at legislation for anything up to 30 g of cannabis to be taken out of the hands of prosecutors and handled by “dissuasion committees,” which would advise people to go to treatment if caught repeatedly.

Meanwhile, the idea of cannabis clubs aims to circumvent federal laws against selling marijuana as members would be simply paying to grow for their own use. Lawmakers are considering the idea of associations with up to 100 members, who would pay a subscription and receive about 50 g of marijuana per month. The Mexican drug-policy-reform group Cupihd, which has done extensive research into the issue, believes such clubs could take up 70% of the Mexico City marijuana market, which it estimates is now worth about $30 million a year. “With clubs, marijuana can be regulated without profits, and give the users control,” says Cupihd director Jorge Hernández. “They can open a space to show that regulation is better than denial and failed prohibition.” Mexico City could be used as a laboratory for policymakers across the country — and, indeed, the continent — to observe and learn from, Hernández says.

However, such clubs could still be open to challenges from Mexico’s federal government over violation of drug-production laws. President Enrique Peña Nieto has said he is personally opposed to marijuana legalization but in favor of a new debate on the issue. The U.S. federal government’s call to not intervene in Colorado and Washington State could have an influence on decisions south of the border. “We look foolish trying to be champions of prohibition, when the United States is legalizing,” the lawmaker Llerenas says.

While former President Felipe Calderón waged a military-led offensive against drug cartels, Peña Nieto has focused on crime prevention and reducing homicides. Mexican cartels make billions of dollars trafficking cocaine, heroin and crystal meth as well as marijuana to the U.S., so legal cannabis in Mexico City would have only a minor impact on their business. However, advocates see the move as an important step in gradually shifting drug policies in Mexico and the U.S.

It is yet to be seen how much resistance the Mexico City marijuana proposals will meet. Opponents include conservative parent groups and the Catholic Church. “It is irresponsible to say that marijuana is not harmful,” says Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico City. “We need to hear the voices of the families of addicts in this debate.” However, the same groups are also robustly opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, but failed to stop them being legalized in the capital.

On the other side, Mexican politicians and personalities from across the spectrum have recently spoken in favor of marijuana legalization. A newspaper advertisement supporting reform was signed by 67 prominent figures, including actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, two former Health Secretaries, Nobel laureate Mario Molina and Calderón’s former Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont. Former President Vicente Fox has become a particularly robust advocate, saying he would even like to work with a U.S. Internet impresario in a marijuana company. “This is not an issue of left against right,” Hernández of Cupihd says. “Many in the political class are coming to realize that something has to be done.”

.....2 Thessalonians 2:8-12.................. Evil is already insidiously at work but its activities are restricted until what I have called the “restraining power” (of God) is removed. When that happens the lawless man will be plainly seen—though the truth of the Lord Jesus spells his doom, and the radiance of the coming of the Lord Jesus will be his utter destruction. The lawless man is produced by the spirit of evil and armed with all the force, wonders and signs that falsehood can devise. To those involved in this dying world he will come with evil’s undiluted power to deceive, for they have refused to love the truth which could have saved them. God sends upon them, therefore, the full force of evil’s delusion, so that they put their faith in an utter fraud and meet the inevitable judgment of all who have refused to believe the truth and who have made evil their play-fellow.

When the governments get past this little hump of common sense, maybe they'll start wondering aloud why they decided to put people in cages for their interest in a common plant that changes one's way of thinking for a few hours, and is not only harmless but may actually be incredibly beneficial. (Got cancer? Well, maybe it CURES that...)

And somewhere in there, maybe they'll also stop waving their goddam flags in our faces and telling us how 'free' we are, all evidence to the contrary.

Sorry, governments of the idiot bible thumping world, but SOME of us like thinking differently than you, and maybe you should try it sometime; it might be good for you.

In my opinion I feel that that is an extreme measure and that would roll into a whole other pile of issues that I'm sure would only worsen the problem. people are already crossing the border it will only further their ambition to cross over illegally or for trafficking purposes. it would make no literal difference, just more time consuming, difficult and possibly make the country relation stability insecure. it's not like the Mexican Government is not in agreement with the American Government if anything this looks more like a strategy that they both agreed upon honestly. So do walls work? Not anymore than a nuclear deterrent would, it's like a standoff saying you've got yours aimed at me and mine at you now what ? in some cases walls are necessary but not in this application because both Governments are in cooperation with each other. All I'm saying is that it's definitely a momentum based thing and when demand is there people do what ever they want for what ever they want.

Sir, walls work; just ask the Israelis, who before they put up their walls suffered regular terror attacks. Now, other than some rockets, that has all ceased. Both the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain stopped almost all human traffic across those borders. The reason the US isn't able to shut its border is because the we-are-the-world liberals don't want it shut, and average citizens are paying a hellish price. Liberalism is the state against its own citizens.

As for prohibition, murder laws have not stopped murder. But I don't think that is any reason to give up on enforcing these laws. Do you?

“We cannot hope for a drug-free world. But we can hope to limit the damage and take the profits away from organized crime."As long as the government doesn't abuse how they market it and tax it, then I'm sure the people will be happy.

More people die from prescription drugs than from all other illicit drugs combined. Zero deaths has been a long standing statistic for cannabis. If the world was really concerned about such things and not just following the popular propaganda, they might outlaw the big pharma companies from ever making a profit.

Denial of cannabis by Prohibition ‘law’ premeditatedly inflicts suffering, blindness, and, in many instances, death. Those who maintain any use of life-saving cannabis to be "illegal" should be regarded and treated as perpetrators of the gravest of crimes, and deemed unfit to hold any public office in a democratic society.

The Report collates Empirical Evidence and the Findings of Fact of official clinical studies which exonerate cannabis and vindicate all cultivation, trade, possession and use. The Report establishes massive ulterior money-motive and prejury behind prohibition; and indicts government.

It is a movement . Is not legal yet. Who will aprove it is doing for his kids. He or She hates them all. First step for human destruction, "mentally". Who will pay their bills? Tax payers. Working people who barely makes end needs. ...are the cleanest people in earth...why they have to?.....

The US is in a much better position to control all drugs save pharmaceuticals and cannabis. Since illegal drugs aren't going to walk across the borders by themselves, somebody has to carry them across. So, closing borders to illegal aliens is also closing them to drug smuggling. But cheap labor for the Republicans and an endless supply of endlessly needy immigrants who will be loyal Democrat voters are more important than the lives of Americans--and Mexicans, since most of those drugs wind up in the US.

@Father Hugo Valdemar, You really should familiarize yourself with the science and the truth. Bearing false witness is not a good policy and I hear that those of your faith are told not to do that. Educate yourself to the truth through science and stop repeating Propagand and lies. Remind me, how many people have been murdered by the Cartels who are vying fo control of the Mexican Black Market? That's the result off the policy you favor, not the substance. Do your job and be truthful and stop regugitating proven falsehoods. TIA

Father Hugo, if you are reading this, trust me: marijuana is nothing to seriously worry about. People do not get violent when they smoke marijuana, like they do when they drink. This is just a fact. Also, nobody has EVER overdosed on marijuana. It's pretty much impossible. People overdose on alcohol every day. And, let's face it, marijuana is a PLANT. It grows naturally. If you believe in God, then I highly doubt God created a plant so that people would be locked in cages for possessing it.

Let's get our heads out of the clouds and realize that throwing human beings in cages for years at a time because they possessed a plant is absolutely absurd. 100 years from now, humans will look back on these drug laws and realize how primitive they were and destructive they were to families.

Anyone who thinks marijuana should stay illegal is part of the problem and should be held responsible for the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of non-violent people in prison. Shame on you.

@AaronRWatson LOL Mexico only trafficks brick weed mainly here, the good weed stays in Mexico, just like the good weed people smoke in the U.S. is U.S. grown. On a drug map of the U.S, Marijuana is literally the only drug that isn't imported, other than Meth. Meth is proliferate in small towns, and a lot of Nevada, where I live, if they were smoking weed and not meth, I wouldn't mind one problem replacing another. Smoke more legally grown weed in the U.S. grown in the U.S. and less heroin/cocaine imported from Mexico.

@AaronRWatson Prohibition CAUSES crime! Virtually ALL the crime around drugs is prohibition-related, not drug-related, meaning, drug use is not the CAUSE of the violence that is automatically created when government (acting to protect the profits of the corporations that control it) created black markets in natural God-given plant gifts.

So, what was actually "extreme" was the very idea of criminalizing peaceful victimless people for their natural desire to use safe effective natural plant products to feel better. But to see that, one would have to look at history honestly.

@MatthewDunnyveg How the hell can you compare people choosing to use a drug that cannot kill you - unlike alcohol, tobacco or thousands of prescription or over the counter drugs - to murder? Or justify throwing people in jail for doing so? I guess its not too surprising, given how impressed you are with the effectiveness of the Iron Curtain.

Yeah sure you can make any "CLUB" you want for what ever purpose you want but it boils down to the same fact that @SeanSbragia is making. In which I think a lot of people would agree with, why is it that pharmacies can make a nice private earnings, and someone who want's to specialize in a certain market can't. For example "there are already loads of hemp shops already open, why not sell the stuff there? or anywhere else for that matter". Not only can the government tax it like alcohol or any other product out there, but it will be creating an already large consumer market even bigger which in the end in my opinion " not only gives a portion of the money to the government for stuff like I don't know I'm from Canada, the CP railway maintenance, Canada's roads or even different funding programs for say Flood relief. Not to mention with growth in market creates more opportunity for pre existing and future business owners, also creating more jobs." In the end it has a lot of benefits in a lot of different ways, from income, limiting further funding for the drug market for other substances, and possible support from government programs or more funding for other things." Again in my opinion the same thing happened with alcohol, there were literal hunts for people making moonshine, same thing with marijuana. To be honest its gonna happen sooner or later that it becomes legal in most places around the world. My only hope is that it is sooner rather than later"

the fact is that the production of a weed is so easy and inexpensive that any body can produce enough for personal consumption even on a couple of flower pots... if that becomes possible... the quantities produced could be abundant and the price miniscule...

Prohibition engendered black market profits are obscenely huge. Remove this and you remove the ability to bribe or threaten any government official or even whole governments. The argument that legalized regulation won't severely cripple organized crime is truly bizarre. Of course, the bad guys won't just disappear, but if you severely diminish their income you also severely diminish their power. The proceeds from theft, extortion, pirated goods etc. are a drop in the ocean compared to what can be earned by selling prohibited/unregulated drugs in a black market estimated to be worth 400,000 million dollars. The immense illegal capital, gifted through prohibition, is what gives these criminal cartels and terrorists power. Power that has allowed them to expand into other areas with near total impunity.

Prohibition­ has helped to make all manner of substances freely available in schools, and even prisons—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has raised gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has created a prison-for-profit synergy with drug-lords, terrorists, and corrupt law enforcement agencies—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has removed many of our cherished and important civil liberties—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has put many previously unknown and contaminated drugs on our streets—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has escalated Murder, Theft, Muggings, and Burglaries—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has given birth to forfeiture laws that have allowed citizens to be robbed of both money and property without charge or conviction of any crime—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has overcrowded the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are really hurting and terrorizing others—how has that helped our kids?

Prohibition has evolved local street gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, and with significant social and military resources at their disposal—how has that helped our kids?

“The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”

Even though it's easily circumnavigated with catapults, tunnels, drones, ramps, fat bribes and threats, border security has become a booming sector for the prohibition industrial complex. In 2012 alone, the U.S. government spent $18 billion on border and immigration enforcement agencies, more than on all other federal law enforcement agencies—including the FBI, DEA, etc—combined.

The only people who believe prohibition is working are those making a living by enforcing laws in it's name and those amassing huge fortunes on the black market profits. This situation is wholly unsustainable and as history has shown us, conditions will continue to deteriorate until we finally, just like our forefathers, see sense and revert back to tried and tested methods of regulation. None of these substances, legal or illegal, are ever going to go away but we CAN decide to implement policies that do far more good than harm.

Prohibition causes massive crime and suffering, causes government/police corruption, causes America to have the highest prison population of any country in the history of the planet, causes Americans to lose all their rights and all their true core-values, causes the waste of trillions in taxpayer dollars, causes wars, violence and death, perpetuates racism, and funds both criminals and terrorists.

Prohibition is a dangerous "free-for-all" where much of the profits go to the most dangerous elements in society—politicians and terrorists.

1) Tobacco is cancer causing largely because it delivers specific carcinogens such as NNK and NNAL that are not present in cannabis. Not all "tar" is created equal, and tobacco has some of the most carcinogenic types of tar known to science, whereas cannabis does not.

2) Cannabis (marijuana) use is associated with a DECREASE in several types of cancer... potentially even providing a protective effect against tobacco and alcohol related cancer development.

Donald Tashkin, a UCLA researcher whose work is funded by NIDA, did a case-control study comparing 1,200 patients with lung, head and neck cancers to a matched group with no cancer. Even the heaviest marijuana smokers had no increased risk of cancer, and had somewhat lower cancer risk than non-smokers (tobacco smokers had a 20-fold increased lung cancer risk). Tashkin D. Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer: Results of a Case-Control Study. American Thoracic Society International Conference. May 23, 2006.

Researchers at the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, funded by NIDA, followed 65,000 patients for nearly a decade, comparing cancer rates among non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and marijuana smokers. Tobacco smokers had massively higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers. Marijuana smokers who didn't also use tobacco had no increase in risk of tobacco-related cancers or of cancer risk overall. In fact their rates of lung and most other cancers were slightly lower than non-smokers. Sidney, S. et al. Marijuana Use and Cancer Incidence (California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 8. Sept. 1997, p. 722-728.

@KendraSigurdson I'm curious as to what our definition of freedom is. Mine is do what you want, just don't hurt anyone else. That means, when a government tells me what I can and cannot put inside my body, we don't live in a free country. Since you seen so interested in defining morality for people, beyond the Golden Rule, maybe you'd be more comfortable in some place like Saudi Arabia, or North Korea.

@KendraSigurdson In what way exactly is it that what other people do have any affect on you? You sound like a pompous ass. I don't intend to offend you. But if you don't approve of something then don't do it. But don't assume that you are so almighty wise that you have the right to tell other people how to live their lives.

Researchers led by Professor David Nutt, a former chief drugs adviser to the British government, asked drug-harm experts to rank 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. Alcohol scored 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual.

Most of us know that individuals who use illegal drugs are going to get high—no matter what, so why do you not prefer they acquire them in stores that check IDs and pay taxes? Gifting the market in narcotics to ruthless criminals, foreign terrorists, and corrupt law enforcement officials is seriously compromising our future.

Sir, namecalling is the most graceless possible of admitting you've lost the argument. It means you don't have anything intelligent to say. Your words merely confirm my contention that cannabis robs its users of their critical faculties. Checkmate.

@MatthewDunnyveg@AlanEMason Count on? So in other words you're guessing? Because that's how science works? Guessing based on emotion?? You are a moron 1_ 2) Cannabis cures cancer, doesn't cause lung disease and is better than safe. IT'S MEDICINE.

frig off ya looney. But you wouldn't know that because you don't know anything about cannabis other than the lies spoon fed to you by big pharma your whole life. Which is what this is really about PROFIT... or the loss of profit pharma and oil would lose if this miracle plant was allowed to be free. How will they make money if everyone can grow their own medicine and oil? They wont' uh oh!!!

@MatthewDunnyveg@ready2behere Cannabis has been widely used for centuries and has been thoroughly studied in multiple jurisdictions and contexts. While it's certainly possible that there are lethal effects, IF they exist they are at a much lower level than those from tobacco, alcohol, acetaminophen, bees, cars, and peanuts - all things we tolerate in our society.

@MatthewDunnyveg@AlanEMason 'you liberals' and 'we Americans'? By your apparent definition (everyone who's for pot legalization or who doesn't think the USSR is a good role model for America to follow is a liberal), MOST Americans are liberals.

Voluntary sobriety works great. Involuntary sobriety works great if you stand to make a profit off of drug smuggling, but it's a miserable failure from the standpoint of those of us who AREN'T drug smugglers.

What makes you think I haven't done my homework concerning cannabis, including much past personal experience. I'm well aware of what it does, and that it is an intoxicant. It makes its users stupid.

As far as how many people have died, that is a bit disingenuous. Cigarettes were around for many decades before their perils were fully understood. Cannabis hasn't been in widespread use for long enough to provide reliable data.

I don't think there should be federal laws against the stuff, but I sure don't want it legal here in Texas.

Sounds like you should do some homework. Bureaucratic laws for the sake of being able to force rules upon people are illogical. You should do some research into how Cannabis prohibition came about. Some terms to start with would include: Harry Anslinger (1937), Federal Bureau of Narcotics, reefer madness, Dr William Woodward (American Medical Association), William Randolph Hearst, and the Dupont Corporation.

There are many things in our lives which require moderation (Big Macs, TV, Sex, Alcohol, Sugar, Caffeine,...etc). Writing laws to prohibit everything that could be abused not only goes against the constitution but would turn America into much more of a police state than it has already become. Cannabis was prohibited as a result of several factors non of which included concerns for the safety of the American people. A great place to start with your research is a documentary written by Adam Scorgie called "The Union". If you have a Netflix account, it can be streamed online.

If after your research you still think that Cannabis & HEMP are evil and dangerous. Take a look at the attached drug comparison chart which I originally pulled from the National Institute of Health website. Two additional questions you should ask yourself. How many people has Cannabis Killed? - 0 - And last but not least, if the drug is so dangerous why did our own government assign itself a patent on cannabis relaying the many health benefits associated with Cannabinoids?